Today's discussion about the news
Comments
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You don't need to shout over the top of someone to express anger. Someone who writes for a living should be able to do better. For all Hislop's skill as a journalist and writer he hasn't been able to galvanise action in the way that the dramatists and actors did.
Peston was obviously loving it like a guy cheering on a fight outside a pub.
1985 Mercian King of Mercia - work in progress (Hah! Who am I kidding?)
Pinnacle Monzonite
Part of the anti-growth coalition0 -
"For all Hislop's skill as a journalist and writer he hasn't been able to galvanise action in the way that the dramatists and actors did." Ooof.
I don't think it is Hislop's fault that since he's been writing about it the government has been uninterested in good governance but is interested in headline chasing.
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It seems sorry state of affairs that seemingly the only reason people are interested in righting this wrong is that there's been a TV drama.
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po inquiry is currently skewering one of the po investigators, hasn't actually said "i was only following orders", but that's the drift
plenty of playing with semantics to try and squirm out of differences between his behaviour, witness statement and facts
he's small fry, but i'm not feeling any pity
my bike - faster than god's and twice as shiny0 -
That always seems to be the case. Whenever a miscarriage of justice is revealed the whole process seems to take unnecessarily long (years) and only really pick up speed when it gathers public attention. Once convicted, it seems better that 10 innocent people remain in prison than one guilty person is released.
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One of the victims was saying this morning that she was going with a notebook to record how many times he says he has no recollection of something. Another said she was looking forward to him going through some of what he put them through. Hopefully there'll be some legal comeback on those involved and not just the financial penalty from compensation.
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I can't remember a TV drama having this big an impact before. If i'm understanding correctly, the government is taking a route to solving this that is without precedent
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I'm being a bit mean but there's a lesson about how you get attention for a cause in that. You need to get through to people emotionally as well as intellectually.
1985 Mercian King of Mercia - work in progress (Hah! Who am I kidding?)
Pinnacle Monzonite
Part of the anti-growth coalition0 -
I don't think there are direct parallels in that way, but if you look at the wrongful conviction of Andrew Malkinson, he was dubiously jailed in 2003, retesting found another man's DNA on the victim in 2007, the CPS was notified in 2009 (and did nothing), he was released from prison in 2020 (late because he wouldn't admit guilt) and his conviction was quashed in 2023. After his release, he publicly criticised the fact that he would be charged for living costs during his time in prison. This attracted enough media attention that Sunak decided to change the rules.
So whilst it is not the same, the wheels of undoing a guilty verdict take forever and politicians only implement something when the media creates a lot of noise. In the PO case, the noise came from the TV drama.
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Looks like we’re going to get dragged into military action again then. The Houthi have played a bit of a blinder really, they’ve made it so the West plus others have to take action but have done it in such a way that they can spin it to people in the Middle East that they are taking Israel’s side in the Gaza war even though it should be obvious it is about protecting trade routes. The people of Yemen will no doubt end up as the main victims once again.
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As said before, just cos things are bad now doesn't mean that they can't get worse.
Tangentially, Sweden's top military advisors have said the population better prepare for the possibility of war. Not that it is imminent, but be prepared.
The above may be fact, or fiction, I may be serious, I may be jesting.
I am not sure. You have no chance.Veronese68 wrote:PB is the most sensible person on here.0 -
Lots of pepole in the Middle East and Horn of Africa rely on trade through the Red Sea, so the Houthis are doing as much harm to their neighbours as anyone else.
1985 Mercian King of Mercia - work in progress (Hah! Who am I kidding?)
Pinnacle Monzonite
Part of the anti-growth coalition0 -
Russia criticising the action, I can never tell if they genuinely lack self-awareness or are trolling
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Anyone else see Andy Haldane (former chief economist for BoE and one of the more original thinkers for such a role) in the FT today?
I will try my best to paraphrase.
Arguing that HMT has too much power. maybe he's talking his own book but he argues the best thing Brown ever did was handing rates setting to the BoE and taking out of gov't hands, and he suggests doing something siilar; separating the Treasury Finance and Economic Ministry functions.
He argues HMT is "fiscal first" and therefore, rationally, are focused on avoiding funding crises in the medium term - which he says is crucial and requires singular focus.
But that in turn means policies to deliver sustained growth are of secondary importance. He suggests breaking the cycle of poor investment by giving growth "equal billing with fiscal sustainability as a policy objective" and thinks it can be achieved by "creating a new economy ministry with an explicit growth mission"
He then goes into some more details about how to organise it, with a panel of independent experts like the US Council of Economic Advisors.
In addition, he advocates much more devolution "to harvest the full fruits of local growth", and he'd set up "citizen's assemblies" to hold the local leaders accountable for their decision making.
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Does he spell out what growth policies will look like?
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That's the easy bit. The hard bit is deciding what to invest in.
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I suspect the weird judicial powers it had combined with profit seeking incentives is not the heady mix of socially important services done efficiently the Thatcher government had envisioned.
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Who there thought it would be a good look for the ‘tax payer’ to foot part of the bill for their issues even if it was legal to do so? I really hope there are high level prosecutions as a result of this.
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I think equating something tax deductible to the bill being footed by the tax payer isn't really right.
Also, this is a sensationalist Dan Neidle investigation, so in reality will be much less clear cut.
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There's just a whiff of dishonesty in the Barrowman/Mone household. Mone is upset that Dan Neidle is interested in Barrowman's tax affairs... surely there's nothing iffy there... (sorry, a bit of an epic thread, and maybe sensational, but even so...)
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I do find Dan Neidle increasingly hard to take seriously.
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He is a classic case of audience capture.
He came from a authoritative background loaded with expertise. Got the limelight with some good work and it's obvious now he's chasing the light.
https://gurwinder.substack.com/p/the-perils-of-audience-capture
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Aye but, if it generates more Moaning from the run away and hide knicker peddler, bring it on.
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Agreed, he's enjoying the limelight, but, like Carol Vorderman, if he can use it to expose the stuff that seems to get overlooked by journalists who, for whatever reason (but mostly client journalism) overlook stuff like this, I've got no problem with that. Hre seems to be comfortable with criticism & correction.
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Also says a lot about the FT that its headline was Dan Neidle's story. Even the Guardian managed to ask another expert and discovered it wasn't quite as clear cut as his story made out.
The FT still has troller in chief, Chris Giles, on its payroll, so there isn't much hope for it.
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